Google Media Tools looks back at Japan’s 2011 earthquake & tsunami

A year after the 9.0 magnitude earthquake which devastated Japan, Google has released high quality images from Street View of the quake’s aftermath.

The images are taken from Google’s Street View camera, which was sent back to Japan to record updated images of the country following the quake.   The release of the images is likely aimed a media companies covering the first anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami.

Google released the new Street View images in late 2011 that cover some 44,000 kilometres of Japan.  The images released today show boats that had been washed inland by the tsunami and flattened buildings.

When Google recorded the images the company said that it did so to create a record of the natural disaster to help researchers and the public understand the effects of the disaster.

These are the first updates to the image set since April 2011 when Google added before-and-after images of the eastern Japanese coast.